Marauders

Didja miss me last week? Well, didja? Huh? Huh? Yeah, I didn't miss you either.

Ingrates.

I didn't know it was possible to be this bored and not be waiting in line at the DMV to renew my ice-fishing license. Correct my misperceptions if I'm way off the army base here, but I thought we exhausted the whole "Quantum as Hannibal Smith, Trip as Face, and May-Infomercial-For-Bowflex as B.A. Barrabas driving around in their space van to help the downtrodden aliens" thing last year. I give this episode a "D" for dullness, destroying the image of dangerous rampaging Klingons and turning them into dancing doilies, and death-rattle-inducing. There was no tension, no surprise, and no sign of compelling dialogue or character development -- in short, it was a like thirty-six straight hours of C-Span, but more tedious.

Rocks. Dust. Dehydrated land.

Mathra: Great -- another Vasquez Rocks episode.
Keckler: More like "Terra Nova."
Mathra: More like a Bajoran refugee camp.
Keckler: More like First Contact during the day.
Hunca Munca: Poppadum and I are taking our carriers and leaving both of you.
Mathra: Does that mean we can really adopt Porthos now?
Keckler: Dude, don't piss him off -- he's got a puffy tail and everything.

Tents. More dust. Flaming industrial oil-type cylinders. A child wearing a "Save me from the enfolding situation, because I'm young, innocent, and will soon share something in common with either Reed, Trip, or Quantum" t-shirt runs around protecting his eyes from the dust. Two men work with some tubing and toss a water skin back and forth. In the distance, a tiny dot zooms through the air. The men furrow at it. No, wait, those are their real foreheads. Oh my god, it's a Furrow Colony -- Quantum's home world! One Furrowing Humanoid asks, "Is it them?" The other one doesn't know, but doesn't think it looks like their ship, and confirms for all of us on the edge of our seats that it is not "them." The shuttle lands.

If it weren't for the fact that they are in the Gobi, I'd say that was the wettest teaser ever.